Earlier this year, I was on a flight from Los Angeles to Dallas, and I awoke from a much needed one and a half hour nap. When I decided it was time to move my seat from the lie flat position back to a reclined state, I took off my eye mask and traded it for my glasses. I blinked a few times, but something was different. Everything was blurry a lot longer than it seemed it should be. I double-checked to make sure my glasses were in fact on my face...and sure enough, they were. At this point, I was incredibly confused. I thought, ok, maybe my glasses are just too dirty. I cleaned my glasses and looked them over to be sure they were actually clean, and it seemed they were just about as good as they could get without a microfiber cloth. Sure enough, I still couldn't seem to get my eyes to focus... What I had realized, is that my eye mask was actually on my face too tightly, somehow causing my eyes to not be able to focus for a short time. After about 15 minutes, as we were descending into the Dallas/ Ft. Worth Metroplex, I finally began to be able to see again.
Fast forward to last weekend where I got the opportunity to be in the choir for the 2014 Passion Conference in Houston, and I was doing a lot of refocusing. (Ever since I started college, I had been refocusing!) Great speakers shared the messages God put on their hearts, and I listened. I listened more than I ever have at conferences like this. Despite how tired I was during almost every session, I paid attention to every message; it just really was what I needed to hear. I went into the weekend knowing that I needed to refocus, to hear truths from the Bible recalled, and to examine my current surroundings in life. If we look at this kind of simple analogy I'm using, we refocus all the time. Our eyes have to constantly adjust to light, to distance...ultimately to our surroundings.
Sometimes, no matter how prepared we are for the light to suddenly flood the dark room we're in, it still hurts our eyes...and we need to refocus.
I don't know about you, but I've gotten caught up in college so many times. Yes, there's a thing called being busy, but we all know the difference between actually being busy, and being busy with a side of wasted time. Two days after the Passion conference, I begun the Advocare 24 Day Challenge. I figured, it was time for a healthier change. I'm less than a year out from graduating college, and it's really time that I'm diligent with what I've been given and really prepare for the future as best as I can. Already it's been so much of a wake up call for me.
Today, I have a new outlook. I'm doing this 24 day challenge to be healthier, yes. However, it's not just solely about that. I've had an attitude about not caring in the past, and I'm done with that. The reality is that I do care, and that I want to live a better life. The Word says that along with spiritual assistance, we need to make every effort toward righteousness. It's not about perfection, but heading in that direction. No one truly does what's wrong for the sake of it being wrong; they do what's wrong because they don't believe the value of what's right. Well, there IS value in what's right, often times more than we know or realize. We all mess up from time to time, and we all lose focus of what's right. I've realized that truly believing in the value of this challenge is what has made it so easy for me. I went into it incredibly optimistic, and though it's been tough at times, I know why I'm doing it.
It's the same in life. We can do the right things all we want, but unless we really know the reason we're doing them, and we BELIEVE that value of what is right, it will never mean anything.
I'm at a great place in my life where I'm blessed to be on this journey to being healthier, in more ways than one.
If you're not happy with where you are in life, I encourage you to take a look at where you are and refocus. Maybe you got a glimpse of a Light?
Joey